Ask The Blog Team: For Those Who Had a Nursery Prepared, What Did You Do With the Room and All the Stuff?

Welcome to our Q+A series, Ask the Blog Team. In this series, the Hope Mommies blog team joins together to answer questions that are commonly asked in grief. If there is a question or topic that you have wrestled with in your grief that you would like the opportunity to see how other Hope Moms have processed or answered, we would love to hear from you. You can submit your questions here.

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We left the stuff up until my son, our new blessing, was born the next year. Initially, we left all the stuff up after our daughter died because we wanted to remember her, and we could not bear the thought of putting it away. However, once I found out I was pregnant again, we left it out because we were hopeful God would give us a living child.

After I first lost my daughter I thought, “Why now, just when we got the nursery ready? Why not before the nursery?” But now I’m so grateful I had that time with Ginny. Preparing the nursery was one of the main ways I was able to parent her. I had all her clothes washed and ready. I don’t regret snipping a single tag, because that was for her.

We ended up taking down the nursery a week after she died. Looking back, that was a bit too early for us, I think. But we knew we needed our moms there for support, and they were leaving the next day. My mom tried to encourage me to keep everything for future children. I agreed to keep big stuff like the crib and stroller—those things were purchased with our whole future family in mind. But all her clothes and toys were meant for her.

I hated the thought of them packed away in a box not being used, just waiting for a baby who may or may not arrive. I wanted them to be used, so we donated them. It took a while to be ready to take them to the charity shop. Once we did, I felt good that they would be used by a living baby girl. I was sure to take pictures of everything before giving it away so I can always look back at her nursery.

We didn’t have a nursery prepared, but we had some essentials. I decided to keep most of it with the hopes to still use it, but after a few years of infertility I decided to sort through and donate most of it to foster families. I kept the more expensive items and a few maternity clothes. The pile of items had become somewhat of an idol, waiting for the next baby. While we were fervently praying for another child, I knew that having another child wouldn’t be what satisfied me; that helped me get rid of the clutter and donate to families it could be of use to.

I left the nursery as it was since I hoped to have another baby someday. In my day, our nurseries were the same for each child, so it wasn’t specifically decorated for my son. Someone packed away all of the clothes I had washed, lovingly folded, and placed in the dresser drawers. That box of clothes and blankets was stored in my attic until I was pregnant with my daughter. Then I donated the boy clothes and prayed another mother of a son would be blessed.

We left our nursery up. We knew we wanted to have another baby, and taking it down felt like erasing Max. My husband even insisted on keeping the door open. He wanted it to be like a litmus test—if having it open was too hard, we had to talk to each other about it. It was hard, but it was absolutely the right choice for us.

We left our nursery up for a few days, and then took it down. We had just put it up the week before we learned our baby died. Almost any decision for what to do felt “wrong” and I just couldn’t manage seeing the crib and changing table empty.

We moved these things out to our garage and kept them, intentionally hoping to be able to use them one day, but also honoring that they were too painful to have in plain sight and unused. In some ways, it was a gift that we hadn’t yet had our baby shower, so we only had a few baby items. However, it was also a gift that we had some baby items, because those ended up being particularly special to us. We kept as many items as we received up to that point and safely stored them away in honor of this baby. We now get them out each year on our baby’s birthday.

We left it up since we jumped right back into the process of adoption. We had been in the middle of that process when we got pregnant again. We were told we had to put adoption on hold per our agency’s rules. Then I miscarried. Little did we know that less than three months after my miscarriage, we’d be needing that nursery for our adopted infant daughter.

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